Dying to Live; Celebrate Life, Honor Death

     I love life, and what I love most are the little things; the sweet smiles of my grandchildren, a leaf falling in a gentle autumn breeze, glimmering sunlight on the water, so many things bring me joy. But even as a young girl I have had a fascination with death. I grew up a conservative Christian so the idea of heaven was appealing and I never feared dying, just assuming that heaven was where I would go. As I grew older I had experienced death around me with passing family members or pets. These were sad times of course but I also began to wonder more and more about the process of death and became very curious about what was going on in people’s minds as they were leaving this plane of existence. Were they afraid? Did they feel peace and ready to go? What did animals experience? Where do they go? My curiosity only grew in later years as I started to explore other possibilities of death and its process, the more I explored the more questions I had.  I use to plan how I wanted my funeral to be and I wanted it to be a party with everyone dancing and celebrating knowing that I truly lived in this life and that I am at peace to find another. I did not like the idea of people being in a small dark room looking over my body and crying. No this is not how I want my death to be honored. I want to be outside in the woods or on the beach having a picnic, and this is my wish for those I leave behind. Of course I want to be missed but I also want to be remembered for having lived and finding joy and peace in this life.

     Honoring death can help to take away some of its dark mystery because we will all have to face it. One of my favorite movies growing up was “Death Takes A Holiday” with Yvette Mimieux. Death is portrayed by a very handsome fellow, it is Yvette’s turn to die but he falls in love with her and struggles with his mission to take her away. He waits days and thus they have a romantic interlude. Then my idea of death became a romantic one.

     In our culture we look at death as a disease or something to deny, many thinking that if we can deny it hard enough it is something that we can postpone indefinitely and maybe it will only happen to someone else. In nature we see death all of the time, particularly in this season of autumn as the leaves turn and die then fall to the ground. But this rhythm also brings the promise of new life as does my early religious beliefs taught me. In Mexico the national holiday, the Day of the Dead is an honoring of their ancestors. We have Halloween which has its origins of honoring saints and martyrs, but this has turned more into a hallmark holiday.
One of my teachers says to practice dying before we die. This is difficult but an important practice for anyone who wants to depart in peace. In our yoga practice we consider this notion regularly through the breath, the inhalation represents new life, and the exhalation represents death.

What if you knew you would die tomorrow? What would you want to do? I know I would want to be with my family and friends on the beach or in the woods having a picnic. How can we know how to live if we do not know how to die with grace, honor and curiosity?

Our pose this month is; Corpse Pose

• Find a quiet place to lie down.
• Allow the body to surrender to the floor releasing any tension in the toes and fingers by letting go and yielding to gravity.
• Soften the shoulders and the eyes.
• Relax the jaw and find your breath deep in the belly.
• Let yourself feel as if you are floating.
• Then bring intention of celebrating life on each inhalation and honoring death on each exhalation.
• Invite peace into your practice and feel that you are held in infinite wisdom and grace.